MacWorld in New York - 2002 is Apple's year - Page 5

[quote]Originally posted by Blizaine:
<strong>I hear that Apple will put out an RDF on the AGP so the PCI is 8x faster than the DDR on the UMA, but only if the 3GIO is ready from the OEM at a good MSRP. Then again I heard this on the D/L from someone at MOSR so I guess I'm SOL.

After poking around a bit on the Moto site I agree with this assessment. The e500 core, however, seems to be designed with "auxilary processing units" in mind. These become part of the core, and are not connected via OCEAN. The only SIMD unit discussed by Moto in this context is not an AltiVec unit, strangely enough. It is intended for lower end integer DSP applications. FPUs and AltiVec VPUs should be possible, and possibly other integer units...? Moto only mentions 2-way superscalar, however, which would put it as a substantial disadvantage against the G4 (as THT pointed out).

Dorsal may be blowing smoke on this one, but I wouldn't be surprised if a future desktop PPC for Apple used this OCEAN on-chip interconnect scheme -- its pretty cool. The 128 Gb/sec is full duplex and multi-way between different functional units.

Am I the only one who thinks that the moki who posts here is an imposter? How hard would it be for some guy to register the name moki and copy moki's sig from macnn, then begin pulling your collective chains?

[quote]Originally posted by foamy:
<strong>Am I the only one who thinks that the moki who posts here is an imposter? How hard would it be for some guy to register the name moki and copy moki's sig from macnn, then begin pulling your collective chains?

Maybe it's really him, but I just don't buy it.</strong><hr></blockquote>

I've been reading moki's MacNN posts for many months, and never had a doubt it's the same fellow.

Besides, what would be the point of spoofing moki only to be just as reticent as he is on MacNN?

[quote]Originally posted by foamy:
<strong>Am I the only one who thinks that the moki who posts here is an imposter? How hard would it be for some guy to register the name moki and copy moki's sig from macnn, then begin pulling your collective chains?

Maybe it's really him, but I just don't buy it.</strong><hr></blockquote>

That would be reasonable to wonder about in the short term, but since Moki he's been posting here for a long time, and since he's a public figure of sorts in the Mac community, don't you think it would have gotten back to him by now? I mean, wouldn't he have gotten an email or a comment about one of his AI posts, and figured out what was going on, by now?

[quote]Originally posted by foamy:
<strong>Am I the only one who thinks that the moki who posts here is an imposter? How hard would it be for some guy to register the name moki and copy moki's sig from macnn, then begin pulling your collective chains?

Maybe it's really him, but I just don't buy it.</strong><hr></blockquote>

It's the real moki and the same one it always has been and if he's pulling people's chains he makes up some pretty damn accurate crap

"When I was a kid, my favourite relative was Uncle Caveman. After school, wed all go play in his cave, and every once and awhile, hed eat one of us. It wasnt until later that I discovered Uncle...

Yeah and he's obviously enjoying a lot that everyone here flocks to his word, like sheep to the shepherd. You could call that abuse of his position if you wanted. On the other hand, it's your own fault if you turn on your salt diet, when reading his posts.

[quote]Originally posted by G-News:
<strong>Yeah and he's obviously enjoying a lot that everyone here flocks to his word, like sheep to the shepherd. You could call that abuse of his position if you wanted. On the other hand, it's your own fault if you turn on your salt diet, when reading his posts.

[quote] Originally posted by Telomar:All that said when they do release their next generation chip there is no reason it shouldn't be designed with a 64-bit future in mind even if they only do it for marketing reasons.

quote:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Marketing is everything (look at the consoles).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Consoles are largely about the game developers that are onside for a certain console. In Japan a lot of people have bought PS2 consoles simply due to Square's development for the platform.

When the Xbox came out they released it with a series of big Xbox only titles to try and lure people to buy the console for just certain titles. Nintendo did the same thing with the Gamecube. <hr></blockquote>

It may not rely on 'bitness' now, but earlier on, the console marketing was completely reliant on how many bits the machines had. Do you not remember the 16 bit SNES, the 32 bit Saturn and PSX ('wow!'), the 64 bit N64 ('gasp!') and the 'first 128 bit console' the Dreamcast ('hold me back before I go and buy one of those processing monsters!')

All I am saying is that, come January (or even as soon as Xmas), Apple is going to get caught in a pincer movement, and as ZoSo says, will have to talk about the MHz myth and the 64-bit myth. I know full well that Apple has no need for a 64 bit chip, until of course someone walks into PC world and is confronted by a 3GHz P4, a '64 bit' 3600+ AMD, and a 1.6 GHz 32 bit G4 - which two of the three do you think will get sold first?

[quote] Originally posted by Programmer: I don't understand why this "spoils" it?<hr></blockquote>

It doesn't at all. Just stating that I had started to prepare myself for a reasonably realistic NY (I have to upgrade then), and then Dorsal posts juicy stuff about the G5.

"I know full well that Apple has no need for a 64 bit chip, until of course someone walks into PC world and is confronted by a 3GHz P4, a '64 bit' 3600+ AMD, and a 1.6 GHz 32 bit G4 - which two of the three do you think will get sold first?"

Succinctly put.

Lemon Bon Bon

We do it because Steve Jobs is the supreme defender of the Macintosh faith, someone who led Apple back from the brink of extinction just four years ago. And we do it because his annual keynote is...

[quote]Originally posted by DaveLee:
<strong>
I know full well that Apple has no need for a 64 bit chip, until of course someone walks into PC world and is confronted by a 3GHz P4, a '64 bit' 3600+ AMD, and a 1.6 GHz 32 bit G4 - which two of the three do you think will get sold first?</strong><hr></blockquote>

The one the salesman gets the best commission on.

James Savage - "You can take my Mac when you pry it from my cold dead fingers"

This jibes with what I've heard as well, but as I understand it, this motherboard has been unfortunately delayed, and a stop-gap DDR motherboard is what we'll see first. We shall see...</strong><hr></blockquote>

[quote]Originally posted by Lemon Bon Bon:
<strong>"I know full well that Apple has no need for a 64 bit chip, until of course someone walks into PC world and is confronted by a 3GHz P4, a '64 bit' 3600+ AMD, and a 1.6 GHz 32 bit G4 - which two of the three do you think will get sold first?"

Succinctly put.

Lemon Bon Bon</strong><hr></blockquote>

Pathetic, who cares what the other guys got, only kids play that game, grow up.

If there is no benefit why have it.

I heard that geeks are a dime a dozen, I just want to find out who's been passin' out the dimes----- Fred Blassie 1964

Funnily enough you were the only one I noticed who commented on Ambrosia software, EV Nova, which for some reason my ex loves, or his signature.

Maybe you are a little too focused on it.

[quote] It may not rely on 'bitness' now, but earlier on, the console marketing was completely reliant on how many bits the machines had. Do you not remember the 16 bit SNES, the 32 bit Saturn and PSX ('wow!'), the 64 bit N64 ('gasp!') and the 'first 128 bit console' the Dreamcast ('hold me back before I go and buy one of those processing monsters!')

All I am saying is that, come January (or even as soon as Xmas), Apple is going to get caught in a pincer movement, and as ZoSo says, will have to talk about the MHz myth and the 64-bit myth. I know full well that Apple has no need for a 64 bit chip, until of course someone walks into PC world and is confronted by a 3GHz P4, a '64 bit' 3600+ AMD, and a 1.6 GHz 32 bit G4 - which two of the three do you think will get sold first? <hr></blockquote>

If you remember correctly the Dreamcast and N64 were also both failures so marketing the bitness of the consoles didn't work in the least. At the end of the day people did look at what each package offered them.

People will buy whichever seems right. If you want to talk about pro systems then the people that buy those usually have some idea of what they are looking for and what they want. Inserting model numbers or bitness into the equation won't really effect them as most of those people will look beyond the facade.

Some people will have inbuilt reflexes that naturally reject Apple as the "art" or cult machines with more leaning to fashion than practicality. They really aren't so great a number. Most people looking at purchases in that field will at least let you make the case of what a Mac can do for them.

Now if you are talking about the general community the main three components to purchasing a computer for most people are: 1) What are other people saying, 2) What do I see when I walk down by my local shops and 3) Cost.

Apple can't really do much about 1) except get people actually noticing their products through some reasonable marketing. Also the integration of other electronic devices is a great move on Apple's part they just need a few more. 2) is being covered by opening more stores around the place and in fact numbers show vastly increased sales in the areas where new stores have opened. 3) is of questionable importance.

Low initial price points are important but Apple needs to get the message through that they offer more than just the box you would buy in a PC world. That and lower total life costs are what I would expect they go after enterprise with.

I know where I currently am we have a group of PCs and a group of macs. Around a third of the PCs are currently down (lousy IT staff are also largely to blame in this case) but the Macs run fine even with incompetent staff.

The complete package is what makes Apple such a strong platform and they need to go after that. All in all Apple really isn't in too bad a shape. I would like to see them move into the scientific and engineering computing sectors but I expect that will come. They also reall need to work on developers too but I expect that shall come too.

There has been some really good management decisions over at Apple of late and I would expect good results in the 2002/2003 financial year.

"When I was a kid, my favourite relative was Uncle Caveman. After school, wed all go play in his cave, and every once and awhile, hed eat one of us. It wasnt until later that I discovered Uncle...

Well I'm sure Apple will come up with something -- be it Gigaflops or Photoshopmarks. A dual 1.5 GHz G4 can claim 24 GigaFlops, which sounds impressive if nobody else is quoting them. Actually it is impressive... if they can increase the memory bandwidth to feed the monster.

Okay, this idea came to me in a dream last night so it must be true (and yes, this proves I'm a geek):

The 7455's architectural design appears to be well modularized, in particular the memory subsystem is connected to the rest of the processor by a set of 3 internal buses which are 128 bits wide each. The e500 core is connected to the OCEAN by 3 128 bit wide internal buses. At this point you should be saying hmmm... This design isn't surprising because the PowerPC is a load/store RISC architecture where memory access is tightly controlled. There are a couple of other opportunities for "uncoupling" the 7455 core from the rest of the chip and attaching it to the new OCEAN fabric. This might not be an unreasonable thing to do during the 0.18 micron to 0.13 micron transition.

What if the 7500 is actually an 85xx design with the 7455's core attached in place of the e500? Why would you do such a thing? Well the 7455 core is better for the desktop than the 8450 core and it already exists. The 7455 would gain the RapidIO bus, on-chip memory controller, DMA engine, and any of the other system-on-chip devices that Apple might want.

[quote]There are a couple of other opportunities for "uncoupling" the 7455 core from the rest of the chip and attaching it to the new OCEAN fabric. This might not be an unreasonable thing to do during the 0.18 micron to 0.13 micron transition.<hr></blockquote>

noooooh please, don´t give us a stop gap-mobo!! well, or if there´s really no other choice than this, let´s at least have a through-the-line-powermac price drop of let´s say 1k. that would be fair , no? (btw: i don´t think that a stop gap-mobo would even have fw2 or usb2... <img src="graemlins/hmmm.gif" border="0" alt="[Hmmm]" /> ).

i still hope that this time we´ll get the "real deal"... and i´d consider a mobo described/confirmed by Dorsal/moki being one "real deal" (even if it´s not a true G5 7500/8500 whatever)

"The 7455's architectural design appears to be well modularized, in particular the memory subsystem is connected to the rest of the processor by a set of 3 internal buses which are 128 bits wide each. The e500 core is connected to the OCEAN by 3 128 bit wide internal buses. At this point you should be saying hmmm... This design isn't surprising because the PowerPC is a load/store RISC architecture where memory access is tightly controlled. There are a couple of other opportunities for "uncoupling" the 7455 core from the rest of the chip and attaching it to the new OCEAN fabric. This might not be an unreasonable thing to do during the 0.18 micron to 0.13 micron transition.

What if the 7500 is actually an 85xx design with the 7455's core attached in place of the e500? Why would you do such a thing? Well the 7455 core is better for the desktop than the 8450 core and it already exists. The 7455 would gain the RapidIO bus, on-chip memory controller, DMA engine, and any of the other system-on-chip devices that Apple might want."

Isn't this what the Register said a while back? That this would be out San Fran next year according to their 'sources'?

A Rio G4. ie a G4 engineered to take on board modular components in superior architecture. Could this 'uncoupled' core take on an extra fpu? G4 core in superior architecture = 7500? Worthy of name change 'G5' (32 bit version?)

But how does that become 64 bit afterwards? Is that where IBM steps in?

Lemon Bon Bon

big C(!) (It's called 'progress'. Consumers like that sorta thing...)

We do it because Steve Jobs is the supreme defender of the Macintosh faith, someone who led Apple back from the brink of extinction just four years ago. And we do it because his annual keynote is...

[quote]Originally posted by Lemon Bon Bon:
[QB]Isn't this what the Register said a while back? That this would be out San Fran next year according to their 'sources'?

A Rio G4. ie a G4 engineered to take on board modular components in superior architecture. Could this 'uncoupled' core take on an extra fpu? G4 core in superior architecture = 7500? Worthy of name change 'G5' (32 bit version?)

But how does that become 64 bit afterwards? Is that where IBM steps in?
QB]<hr></blockquote>

Yes, the 7500 that the TheRegister described does sound like what this 7455 core + OCEAN hybrid would be but they didn't really have any details on how it would be designed. Adding an FPU to the 7455 core would be independent of attaching it to OCEAN. I wouldn't object to calling it a G5, given the radical change in how it fits into the system. Replacing the core becomes much easier at this point since the interface to the rest of the chip is well defined and (I presume) clean. Adding multiple cores also becomes much more straightforward.

[quote]Originally posted by dr. zoidberg:
<strong>noooooh please, don´t give us a stop gap-mobo!! well, or if there´s really no other choice than this, let´s at least have a through-the-line-powermac price drop of let´s say 1k. that would be fair , no? (btw: i don´t think that a stop gap-mobo would even have fw2 or usb2... <img src="graemlins/hmmm.gif" border="0" alt="[Hmmm]" /> ).

i still hope that this time we´ll get the "real deal"... and i´d consider a mobo described/confirmed by Dorsal/moki being one "real deal" (even if it´s not a true G5 7500/8500 whatever)</strong><hr></blockquote>

I don't really need a new, faster Mac. I'd just want a new, faster Mac. Considering that I'm still getting along quite well with my TiBook 800 for the work I do, the only thing that will motivate me to buy a new PowerMac is a significant performance jump.

Let's face it, for many of us the desire for a hot new toy comes first. Often justifying how said toy will increase our productivity is an afterthought

I don't think an Xserve-style DDR hack for the PowerMac would impress me enough to inspire a new purchase. Only if and when the next PowerMac is in the 1.4-1.5 GHz range with true DDR will I be overcome by technolust and buy a new system. If Apple takes too long getting to that point, then they'll have even further to go to make people impressed performance-wise.

One reason I'd most be interested in seeing a speed boost is for my own Java astronomy software (<a href="http://www.skyviewcafe.com" target="_blank">Sky View Cafe</a>). On my old 1.1 GHz AMD system, I get impressively smooth, fluid animation by quickly spinning the clock on the sky map a minute at a time. But my TiBook, or even dual gig PowerMacs I've tried, produce noticeably more sluggish and jerky animation. I don't know how much of this is a matter of processor speed, hardware video acceleration, or JVM performance, but certainly a more powerful PowerMac can only help.

Besides wanting a faster PowerMac for my own personal reasons, even more I want there to be a faster PowerMac because I want Apple to be gaining market share, not losing it. I want something out there to truly impress the PC crowd and draw a few more percentage points away from Wintel systems, so that all of us Mac users can benefit from the increased software support and availability that bigger market share would bring.

[quote]Originally posted by Programmer:
<strong>Well I'm sure Apple will come up with something -- be it Gigaflops or Photoshopmarks. A dual 1.5 GHz G4 can claim 24 GigaFlops, which sounds impressive if nobody else is quoting them. Actually it is impressive... if they can increase the memory bandwidth to feed the monster.

Okay, this idea came to me in a dream last night so it must be true (and yes, this proves I'm a geek):

The 7455's architectural design appears to be well modularized, in particular the memory subsystem is connected to the rest of the processor by a set of 3 internal buses which are 128 bits wide each. The e500 core is connected to the OCEAN by 3 128 bit wide internal buses. At this point you should be saying hmmm... This design isn't surprising because the PowerPC is a load/store RISC architecture where memory access is tightly controlled. There are a couple of other opportunities for "uncoupling" the 7455 core from the rest of the chip and attaching it to the new OCEAN fabric. This might not be an unreasonable thing to do during the 0.18 micron to 0.13 micron transition.

What if the 7500 is actually an 85xx design with the 7455's core attached in place of the e500? Why would you do such a thing? Well the 7455 core is better for the desktop than the 8450 core and it already exists. The 7455 would gain the RapidIO bus, on-chip memory controller, DMA engine, and any of the other system-on-chip devices that Apple might want.

And since it came in a dream you know it must be true.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Interesting idea, but don't you think that the 7455 core is not enough pipelined in order to increase his clock frequency in the future ?
I know that the only important thing is the performance and not the mhz myth, but if a 10 % loss of performance per mhz is balanced by a 30 % increase of the frequency, it's worth to make the pipeline longer.
To your advice what will be the maximum frequency of the 7455 core on a 0,13 SOI process ?

[quote]Originally posted by powerdoc:
<strong>
Interesting idea, but don't you think that the 7455 core is not enough pipelined in order to increase his clock frequency in the future ?
I know that the only important thing is the performance and not the mhz myth, but if a 10 % loss of performance per mhz is balanced by a 30 % increase of the frequency, it's worth to make the pipeline longer.
To your advice what will be the maximum frequency of the 7455 core on a 0,13 SOI process ?</strong><hr></blockquote>

Motorola has already said it expects the G4 to scale to 1.8 GHz. Unshackled by bandwidth problems it should really fly. And there is another core coming, this would just be a short term solution to fix the bandwidth problem.

[quote]Apple today revised its guidance for the financial quarter ending this June. The company anticipates seeing revenues of US$1.4 to $1.45 billion for the quarter, down from previous guidance of about $1.6 billion.

The company cited soft demand in the consumer and creative markets as reasons for the low numbers. Europe and Japan have been particularly weak, according to Apple.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs noted that like others in the computer industry, Apple is experiencing a slowdown. "We've got some amazing new products in development, so we're excited about the year ahead," said Jobs. "As one of the few companies currently making a profit in the PC business, we remain very optimistic about Apple's prospects for long-term growth."
<hr></blockquote>

That was from MacCentral.

I wonder if this gives credibility to the rumor that things are NOT ready for the next-big-thing in the PowerMac line... that the "Plan-B" solution is what will be released, and Apple knows that the graphics market won't "bite" until the Big guns come-out.

Motorola has already said it expects the G4 to scale to 1.8 GHz. Unshackled by bandwidth problems it should really fly. And there is another core coming, this would just be a short term solution to fix the bandwidth problem.</strong><hr></blockquote>